


Fur and Feathers Fly

by LectorEl



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: AU, Child Soldiers, Fantasy Biology, Genderswap, Girl Ax, Girl Tobias, Hork-Bajir, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Reincarnation, Trauma, all the usual warnings for this series, andalites make no sense, at all, etc. - Freeform, selective genderswap, that impacts how you think of your body, when you've been a host since before you remember
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unconnected animorphs drabbles. Expect a lot of Rachel and Tobias.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anonymous asked: Rachel contemplates what they've done the night after they leave David on the island trapped as a rat.

Burn your bridges.

That’s been my philosophy for a while now. Rachel-the-gymnast is dead. Rachel-who’d-never-killed is too. It’s a better option than not fighting, and I don’t regret my choice. Most of the time. But sometimes. Well, sometimes, you’ve done something you’re not sure was a mercy, and you’re reminded that you don’t even have your driver’s license yet.

I’ve killed a lot of people. Only a few of humans, but a lot of people. The others – sometimes, I’m sure they’ve managed to convince themselves that taxxons and hork-bajir aren’t people. Not _really_. Me, I’ve never bought that line. I’m a killer, and I would be even if I didn’t have a drop of human blood on my hands.

But when it’s someone your age, when it's your fault they’re in the line of fire – I dunno. Maybe Cassie was right. Maybe stranding David on that island was better than killing him.

Maybe. But what we did to David makes me feel dirty in a way that nothing else we’ve done has.


	2. puppiesandsissiesandchastity asked: Animorphs prompt, Rachel/Tobias, reincarnation?

Tobiya-Esgarrouth-Shamtul is the adopted son of War Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. A _vecol_ , though his father has threatened to take the tail of any who dare to use the term within his hearing.

He can barely walk, much less run - his hooves are malformed, curled and twisted in upon themselves until they more truly resemble claws.

«Tobiya-kala, are you prepared to leave?» father asks.

He presses his forehead to his guide tree’s bark. «I’ll be back,» he promises. Then, «Coming, father!»

In the years that pass, he look back at this moment, this last moment of innocence. Before he met Rachim, who burns so brightly, and walks the cliff’s edge between soldier and monster. Before his war, before he’d learned so many things.

Tobiya smiles with his eyes, and presses his palm to the bark of his guide tree, not knowing this is the last time he’ll ever set foot upon these lands. Then he morphs to kafit bird, and takes to the air. Though he cannot run, the wind loves him. His father loves him, and in this moment, that is enough.


	3. About David

In another world, David was an animorph. He took the pressure off Rachel to be the violent one of the group, got on well enough with Tobias, never did warm up to Marco.

It was a scary, traumatizing, and thoroughly horrifying life, but it was the only real option he had. The only acceptable one, anyway.

Unfortunately, he was not in that world at the moment. “Ax? Could you. Put down the tailblade. Please,” David asked carefully. If he morphed lion, he might be able to take him down before he lost his head. _Maybe_.

This was the ellimist’s fault, somehow. David just knew it.


	4. Animorphs secret santa gift

_Andalite Biology_ , Cassie wrote on the top of her paper, followed immediately by,

_-Tria gland is in the head, near what would be the brainstem/spine in a human_

_—-humans, hork-bajir, taxxons, andalites = can be infested_

_—-implications? Taxxon biology is rlly. weird. (How are they infested anyway?)_

Cassie paused, pencil bouncing against the page. Did taxxons even have ears? They seemed sort of like oversized centipedes, no bones and definitely no spine. If there wasn’t a spine, you couldn’t have a brain. So what did taxxons even have?

She shook her head. Taxxon biology later. Andalites – and specifically Ax, and all she didn’t know about how he could get sick, or injured – were. She never wanted to face the sort of situation with his tria gland ever again.

_-nutrient uptake through bottom of hooves (External stomach acid? Abrasion?)_

_—-no associated sense of taste_

_—-check ax’s field. Crushed grass (juiced) or short grazed?_

_——are there slug-analogs/other insects on andalite homeworld?_

_——-if so, do andalites ‘eat’ them deliberately?_

_-what happens if they break a leg and can’t morph the injury away?_

_ -thoughtspeak _

Cassie underlined the last one several times. Andalite biology was bizarre. They could share bacterial infections with humans, had an apendix like organ in their brains, and somehow managed to have esophagus-analogs in their legs.

Did andalites have a blood-brain barrier? Well, they must, otherwise - “Or they could have a completely _different_ system for managing bacteria in the brain.” Cassie let her head thump down on her desk. The tria gland. That was probably a big part of that system, which likely meant Ax was now more vulnerable to infections. Which was a _problem_.

«Tough subject?» Tobias asked. Cassie looked up, unsuprised to see him perched on the tree outside her window. He seemed to have taken it upon himself to babysit them though finals week.

She opened her window, and shrugged. “Kind of? I’ve only got one more final, and I’m going to fail math no matter what I do, so I figured I’d work on something relevant.”

«And what’s that?» Tobias asked, shuffling a little closer on his branch.

Cassie grinned in reluctant humor. “Andalites. And how they manage to exist despite everything I know about animals saying they can’t.”

Tobias churred in amusement. «Give up. Ax has been trying to teach me, and it doesn’t make any sense.»

“I noticed,” Cassie said, in a fit of rare dry humor. “I just want to figure out how they manage to eat at this point.”

«I think they may be some sort of plant?» Tobias suggested. «You know, water pressure brings the sugar up the tubes in the stems, or legs in this case.»

“Are you saying I should water him and make sure he gets enough sun?” Cassie giggled at the image. Potted Ax, with his eye-stalks blooming.

Tobias ruffled his wings. «And regular applications of low-nitrogen fertilizer, if the gardening magazine the old lady at the coffee shop was reading is right.»

“Plant your andalite today!” Cassie managed between giggles. “Just acquire a seed, water, and wait!”

«You know, we never _have_ asked where baby andalites come from,» Tobias said, mental voice filled with amusement.

Cassie laid her head down on her desk, and laughed.


	5. Hork-Bajir Children Playing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for Derinthemadscientist over on tumblr.

Entris Two stumbles, falling to the ship floor with a crash. She giggles. “Win! Entris wins!”

Cedan One, Entris’s playmate, coos happily and presses her forehead against Entris’s own. “Entris wins,” she agrees.

The ship floor creaks. «Someone is coming,» Illiat 203 says, and untangles them from Cedan.

“Myrel -” Illiat warns, and Cedan’s body is straightening up too, Myrel 063 taking control.

«Frightened,» Entris whispers in the safety of their head.

Illiat shushes her. «Safe, safe. We’ll keep you safe, no worrying.»

The door opens, and a human steps in. “What’s going on here?” he demands.

“Sparring practice,” Myrel says with Cedan’s mouth. “No problems.”

He turns to them. “Is this true?”

Illiat nods. “True. No problems.” she spreads their hands. “What else would we be doing?”

“Fine, just be more quiet,” the human says with a sigh, and the door shuts behind him. Illiat and Myrel keep control for several moments more before withdrawing.

Cedan reaches out for Entris, and they cling to one another.

“ _Ghafrash_ scary,” Cedan says, voice low. She shivers and shakes, her blades scraping against Entris’s sides.

“Very scary,” Entris agrees. She reaches for Illiat in their mind. Illiat is safe. Illiat has always been there, for a long as Entris can remember. Illiat goes away, sometimes, but never for long.

«Safe,» Illiat reminds her. «We won’t let anything happen to you.»

«Know. Still scary,» Entris says back. Cedan is the kind of quiet that means she’s talking to Myrel like Entris is talking to Illiat.

“New game?” Cedan asks. “New game, quiet game?”

Entris nods hesitantly.

Just another day aboard the pool ship, for two young hork-bajir controllers. Just another day in the yeerk peace movement.

Just like it will just another day when the only world Entris and Cedan have ever known falls away into the void of space, dead in moments. The war that they have barely noticed is won, and they are lost.


End file.
